Drive around your town and you will likely notice some large buildings with few windows, large garage doors, areas for shipping/receiving, and a business name (or just a building number in some cases) that doesn’t mean a whole lot to many people who drive by.

Those facilities, at least in northern Michigan, are relatively well-taken-care-of, with presentable lawns and a cared-for exterior, but there is not much else to see from the outside.

At first glance, there really doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special about those buildings. That’s because it is what is inside that is truly special.

Those buildings are often manufacturing facilities, and most residents of the area in which they exist never see the inside of the facilities and never fully understand what happens inside the walls of those buildings.

That’s unfortunate, because inside those walls are some important and interesting things that deliver a tremendous amount of value to the communities in which they exist.

Manufacturing can get a bad reputation as people often think it is dirty, loud, environmentally damaging, and repetitive. Although sometimes those things can be true, most often, they are not. Additionally, those factors are highly regulated to keep them in check.

Manufacturing is important to the success of any community. It provides job opportunities to people of all skill levels. It brings in money that is then circulated around the community to other businesses that are not bringing in outsider dollars but rely on circulating dollars. Most manufacturing companies don’t sell to people in their own community. They sell to others outside of the community, state, and country, therefore bringing influxes of cash into the community through those payrolls.

Manufacturers also pay taxes, which, when used responsibly, help improve communities in which they exist.

Manufacturing is something that residents of a community should be proud of. The products and equipment that manufacturers produce improve the lives of others around the world. When residents know the kind of impact their local manufacturers are having on the lives of others, they should be proud to be home to that work.

Without considering frivolous things we purchase, think about the things we wouldn’t have access to without manufacturing as part of the mix. Medications. Safety equipment. Accessibility devices. Communication devices. Materials to build safe shelter. Food.

Consider manufacturing in Alpena. Not all those things mentioned above are manufactured in Alpena, but many of them are made possible because of other equipment manufactured in Alpena. Alpena-based manufacturers make a lot of equipment that helps other manufacturers or industrial clients run their businesses. Equipment like concrete production systems, conveying and material handling solutions, shredders, wood processing solutions, paper handling solutions, and dosing and dispensing technology, to name just a few. Others make products like wood panels for things like fixtures and furniture, vinyl products, grinders, and cutting tools, and much more.

There are thousands of people employed in the many manufacturing businesses in Northeast Michigan. There are hundreds of families relying on their paychecks from their work at manufacturing businesses.

The impact of manufacturing is widespread and significant and, like it or not, manufacturing impacts your life in a very real and positive way.

Next time you pass by those manufacturing facilities, give a little extra thought to the value they are adding to your community. Don’t pass by without paying them any attention and don’t spend your time thinking about negative things you’ve heard that may not even be true.

Consider what your community would be like without them. There would be noticeable negative differences.

Drive by those facilities and be proud of the impact on the world that your community is having through its manufacturing.

Jackie Krawczak is president of Jackie Krawczak LLC. Her column runs every three weeks on Thursdays. Follow Jackie on Twitter @jkrawczak.